Walmart Rebuts ‘Wildly Inaccurate’ NYT Article

Successful businesses, and the individuals who fuel them with a relentless pursuit of value, are under daily assault from a culture which demonizes gainful work while seeking alms from its produce. Few companies endure more persistent attack than Walmart.

Typically, companies remain silent in the face of criticism, taking their lumps while remaining focused on the essentials of doing business. However, like the beleaguered businessmen and women of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, there comes a time when the nation’s producers must raise their voice in defense of their virtues.

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For Walmart, that moment has come. The company’s corporate communications vice president, David Tovar, has responded to a hit piece published by the New York Times with the perfect balance of truth and snark.

Marking up the piece with red ink, as a teacher might correct a student’s sloppy draft, Tovar sets the record straight regarding Walmart’s many contributions to their community of employees, vendors, and customers. “We are the largest taxpayer in America,” Tovar highlights.

It’s a good first step for the corporate leader, and a fine example for businesses and business people everywhere. If you don’t defend yourself, who do you expect will?

Once again, the NYT, blinded by their ideological bias, produces a screed full of inaccurate information. I love that WalMart took them to task. I also think that the Communications VP should have made more emphasis of the fact that WalMart has provided tuition reimbursement for YEARS, as do most other large corporations. In fact, 25 years ago I got my MBA at night while working full time. I paid the tuition up front and then got reimbursed a percentage of that tuition based on my grade in the class -90% reimbursement for an A - which is a great incentive for a student to do well.

Wal Mart's website doesn't say anything about only providing reimbursement for one online university, which is what the NYT article states. But $tarbucks is SPECIFICALLY only reimbursing tuition at one online university. Why not reimburse for classes at local coleges and universities, hmmmm? Is this not America?

One last thought: Am I the only person in America who is sick to death of the "income inequality" argument? Frankly, it implies that somehow there should be "income equality" which is an absolutely ridiculous construct, NEVER achieved in human history. It would imply absolutely equal intelligence, equal effort, equal creativity, equal risk tolerance... Impossible. Why don't more people in positions of influence point call out this "income inequality" argument for the absolute nonsense that it is?

No one is forced to work there. If Walmart can't get staff, they will raise their wages. Most of the employees on public assistance were probably on assistance before they got hired. Walmart is not a charity, it is a business - it is not morally obligated to provide all manner of social services, education, and so on.

Walmart sells cheap stuff made in China to people who cannot afford to buy "Made in America". We need to drive down US wages to Chinese levels to compete, in the meantime we need to subsidize Walmart employees with welfare benefits to keep them from starving. GB Walmart, the perfect retailer for the modern age.

You need to whittle down the costs of living while you're at it, Einstein. What sorts of living expenses do you suppose foreign workers are subjected to? Any wild guesses? You can bet they are no match for what we pay here in the states.

No, to compete, we have to automate more, but that requires people with great knowledge of robotics and other fields requiring great math skills. Where you gonna find those people?

Oh, right... Asians. Go to any university with a great math program, and it will be something like 85% Asians.

Why would you want to compete for a menial, low-skill job with the hordes of illiterates of the world, unless you, too, are illiterate and low-skilled? Maybe the problem is thinking that menial labor should pay a living wage?

Sure, a man used to be able to go work in a factory straight from high school and support a family. However, that was back when a high-school grad had a classical education, could actually read and write and do arithmetic well, and had had years of shop classes, as well. He also had had a paper route, had done yardwork for money, had built stuff with his father, knew his tools, and knew how to fix/build a car. A High School grad then knew more than a college grad, today. Maybe because they were not teaching grievance studies like today.

Also, maybe because after WWII, much of the rest of the world had had their means of production destroyed by war.

Furthermore, factory work was back-breaking and/or unbelievably tedious. Maybe your job was applying the same 12 rivets, day after day, for 40 years. You really want a job like that, just because it pays the bills? We have apps and machines for that, now.

Your post has no facts to support your position, just the usual political buzz phrases. You hold the views you do, because you have no intellectual depth on the subject. You sound like a Democrat.

Good for Wal-Mart. Businesses that aren't part of the crony capitalists or outright wards of the state need to start getting a backbone. I've started shopping at a Wal-Mart that just opened in Boulder (first one), and find it a great experience: friendly staff, good prices, and a nice store laid out on a grid.

It is really telling that they use the double negative, "fight against inequality". Why not a fight “for equality”? Probably because they know that we already have equality baked into our Constitution, our legal system and the mechanisms of a free market economy. If these things are allowed to work unfettered by government and if enough people start to realize that blaming someone else for their condition and demanding things from the government is just not going to work anymore, then this sophomoric shallow-thinking ideologue won't have a job and the NYT might not have any audience at all. No wonder all of their acid over Republican "obstructionism" of government intervention, hyper-regulations and excessive taxation. It kills their con job.